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Democratic Senator Warren Calls for Regulations on Big Tech Companies

Posted on Saturday, March 09, 2019 by Judy Cobb

Democratic Senator Warren Calls for Regulations on Big Tech Companies

"The steps I'm proposing today will allow existing big tech companies to keep offering customer-friendly services, while promoting competition, stimulating innovation in the tech sector and ensuring that America continues to lead the world in producing cutting-edge tech companies", she said.

"I want to make sure that the next generation of great American tech companies can flourish".

The effect of the post - in addition to laying out a pretty badass plan for promoting increased competition and accountability in tech - is that Warren just made breaking up Big Tech a Big Issue for the 2020 democratic primaries, and potentially even 2020 presidential election. She specifically called out Amazon's acquisition of Whole Foods and Zappos; Facebook-owned WhatsApp and Instagram; and Google's Waze, Nest, and DoubleClick as "anti-competitive mergers" to be broken up.

But Warren's post, and speech that she delivered in Queens (sorry, Bezos), turn that idea into an actual mainstream plan of attack.

In a Friday blog post, Sen.

Amazon owns its online marketplace and sells private label goods on it, a move Warren says "crushes small companies by copying the goods they sell on the Amazon Marketplace and then selling its own branded version".

Senator Warren is already known for her advocacy work and previous legislation with antitrust laws; this announcement shouldn't surprise much of anyone who is familiar with her work in Congress.

[T] hose that have an annual global revenue of $25 billion or more, and those with annual revenue of $90 million to $25 billion.

Warren's plan: The proposal would rewrite the tech industry playbook by taking two major steps.

They would also have to meet a standard of fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory dealing with users and be barred from transferring or sharing data with third parties, she noted.

"These companies would be prohibited from owning both the platform utility and any participants on that platform".

"Unwinding these mergers will promote healthy competition in the market - which will put pressure on big tech companies to be more responsive to user concerns, including about privacy", she wrote. What that means, for example, is that if you do a Google search for a restaurant, Google can't give its own ratings priority over, say, Yelp's, notes Vox.

For example, under Warren's proposal, Facebook would be forced to unwind its purchases of Instagram and WhatsApp.

She later takes a swing at Amazon's HQ2 sweepstakes: "Some of these companies have grown so powerful that they can bully cities and states into showering them with massive taxpayer handouts in exchange for doing business".

The liberal activist group Demand Progress has previously called for the USA government to break up Facebook by forcing it to sell Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger. "Tech entrepreneurs would have a fighting chance to compete against the tech giants".

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